010-Farang.txt

010-Farang.txt

Like Gringo in Mexico, Farang is a generic Thai word for white people, no matter where they may come from.

/** Edit: Move this to the opening of the new chapter
Songkran derives from Sanskrit meaning 'shift' or 'movement'. It describes the movement of the sun from one position to  another in the zodiac. Songkran is the Thai New Year.
**/

On my connecting flight, the Canadian seated next to me, had snuck some beers aboard. He had been living in Thailand for the last two years teaching English. He caught me eying his beers, cracked one open and handed it to me a long with some  tips.

"Don't insult the King. Really, just don't talk about the King. He died recently and the country is in a year long mourning period or some shit. Just don't bring him up." said the slurring Canuck.

He explained Thai was a tonal based language. Depending on a words pronunciation, the same word can have a multitude of meanings. After providing me with some of his favorite places to visit and a few Thai phrases, he instructed me I had to have a place to stay to get through security.

"Oh, I don't have a place to stay" I repled.

"What?" said my new friend as he titled his head sipping from his tall boy.

"Yeah I just decided to book a flight here a few weeks ago man. I didn't do any planning. I know drug laws are strict and the military does a bunch of coups here." I said with my head down.

"Just make up some hotel or something man. You'll be fine"

I landed in Bangkok sometime after one in the morning and staggered through the immigration lines. A military style security guard asked for my papers and I obliged. He scanned the form, looked at me, and back down at the form.

"Bangkok Hotel no exist. You need place to stay" he said with a stern face as he passed the form back to me.

'Just make something up' I muttered to myself. I had no cellular data and I couldn't connect to the airports free WiFi. I checked the time back in the United States. Luckily it was business hours. After calling a friend for the name of a real hotel in Bangkok, I filled out a new form and handed it back to the security agent. This time he allowed me to pass.

Now outside the airport I had 4G, but still not knowing a place to go I googled "places to stay in bangkok." After a cursary reading I decided on one of the options and hailed a taxi.

"Where you go?" said the Taxi driver.

"Khao San Road" I replied.

"where you stay?" she asked.

"Just take me to the first hotel you see near Khao San Road."

She muttered something to me in Thai and began driving. We zipped through the city. It was a mish-mash of first-world and third-world. Large office buildings and extravagent stores, followed by dashes of inner-city slum. We rolled to a stop at a hotel near Khao San Road and I hopped out.

A drunk German girl stumbled by.

"Do you know how to find Khao San Road?" she asked.

"This is it" I replied.

"What?"

She was too far gone. I walked away. I began going into each hotel. One by one I found they were booked out. By the third hotel I was beginning to lose hope. Homeless were all around the streets, sleeping against walls, in alley's, in the fetal position on sidewalks. Was this my fate? Spending my first night in Bangkok on the streets? I decided to head into the epicenter of Khao San Road. It looked like a post-apocolyptic street party. The rat burger scene from "Demolition Man." I too thought this was a good burger. I had completely given up on hopes of finding a hotel. The street had several hundred people meandering back and forth. Street food created the aroma and drunks provided the atmosphere.

I purchased a beer for thirty Baht, about one US dollar, sat against the wall and began drinking. From the corner of my eye a very unpassable transexual women approached. She invited me over to where her friends were sitting. Looking at the group, then looking at my other options, which was none, I determined it was better than drinking a lone. I obliged. A Thai man in the grouped asked me if I wanted a whip-it, officially known as nitrous oxide, but often referred to as "laughing gas". When taken under the care of a dentist, a steady stream of oxygen was provided a long with the nitrous, but at raves or Khao San Road the goal was to limit the brain to nitrous only. This allowed you to get as high as possible. The risks here were obvious. Aside from the non-FDA approved nitrous I was about to send directly to my brain, I was surrounded by the unknown in a street that had been popularized by back packers the world over as a shady block party.

I paid the man ten Baht and began inhaling from the baloon and exhaling back into the baloon. The balloon contracted as my lungs expanded, then I reversed the flow. Expanding the balloon as my lungs contracted. You repeated this until the baloon was near empty. Then take the last of what remains in the balloon, mostly likely carbon-dioxide, exhale and slump over.

404 Error: Tylers not here, and I'm not Tyler. The writer you are looking for cannot be found. I was a public static method returning void, completely disconnected and useless. A process in a try/catch statement never to be executed.. Nitrous Oxide always gave me the feeling of being in an under water tunnel. Thoughts and sounds turned into a dull echo. My limbs were motionless and had a "pins and needles" feel to them. Of all the highs you can experience, this was the most idiotic one. This existed for the lowest common denominator. It was so far beneath Timothy Leary that it was a rung or two below Dumb and Dumber. It was a short-lived high, a goldfish could almost remember the experience. When I snapped out of it I came back to my pupil piercing transexual friend looking into my eyes and groping deeply on my grouch over my pants.

"Hey, hey, not interested! Do you understand me? Not interested!" I yelled.

"Oh come on, one-thousand Baht." she smiled back.

I quickly got up and moved to the other side of the group. A more put together individual may have left. An angry one might have caused a scene. This one kept buying balloons. The cycle repeated more or less. I'd get a balloon, inhale, exhale, and slump over until the transexual would try coxing me into sex. This continued until she found a new tourist to harrass. It must have been five in the morning by now. I really needed a spot to rest, even just for a few hours. I wobbled away from whatever I had been doing for the past several hours and kept walking. Finally after twenty minutes I came to a smallish hotel over looking a river. I approached the front desk.

"You sure you want? Check-out at 11 AM, that give you only five hour." she said.

"Just let me book the room."

In a drunken, post nitrous haze, I landed on the bed and attempted to go null.